BY BOB KRASNER | Angel Eyedealism has lived most of her adult life in the East Village. Currently, she resides in a typical tenement walk-up: It’s not the most spacious apartment, or the fanciest — less than 500 square feet, with the bathtub in the kitchen and a steam pipe that rises up straight through the middle of the living room. But she’s made it her home, and she wants to stay there. Unfortunately, unless she finds a good lawyer this week, she may be forced to pack up and go.
If you can imagine Liberace as a woman astrologer living in the East Village, you will have a hint of Angel Eyedealism. A vivacious character who calls herself the “number one astrologer in New York City” (a Google search backs this up), she combines glitter, cleavage, homemade costumes and a bit of performance art to liven up a reading, which she concedes can be “very detail laden and get boring fast.”
“I’ve fallen asleep when others are reading my chart,” she said, “so I try to entertain.”
It’s entirely possible that she will jump up in the middle of a session and proclaim, “And now, a theremin concerto!” and then play one. Which is not to say that she isn’t serious about her work — about two hours of research will go into a reading prior to her meeting with a client.
She hasn’t always been an astrologer and you may not be surprised to learn that her current moniker is not the name she was born with (but no, she’s not sharing that info).
Back in 1983, former high school valedictorian Angel came to New York City from a small town Upstate not just to live here, but to live — literally. Having been the victim of apparent medical malpractice — she was given massive doses of estrogen to “cure” her PMS — she needed to find doctors who could undo the damage that threatened her life.
“The estrogen ravaged my thyroid and adrenal glands,” she explained. Luckily, she found help, but was left with a disability that still affects her life today.
Back then she was calling herself Angela Repellant. While supporting herself with a variety of odd jobs —artist model, cigarette girl at the Palladium, scenic designer, milliner, waitress at Life Cafe — she supplemented her medical healing with “performance art and color therapy,” as she put it.
She became part of the Rivington School, a Lower East Side / East Village art movement that, among other things, created large sculptures from junk materials in various community gardens. She contributed an essay about that era in a recently published book, “Rivington School: 80s New York Underground,” edited by Istvan Kantor.
She changed her name and moved on from performances that involved screaming and pulling out and throwing tampons at the audience. (Don’t ask where she pulled them from.) She put her five-octave range to use in a series of bands with original material and names, such as Womb Service and The Horny Spawn. Having toured Europe, she laughingly refers to herself as “internationally obscure” as a performer.
A brief residence in Brooklyn left her further damaged — a crackhead broke into her apartment and “brutally assaulted” her, she said, leaving her with neck and back injuries.
She subsequently moved into her current abode, which is a co-op. After paying the rent on time for two years, she was offered the option to buy. A mortgage was approved, paperwork was handed in but — to her shock — she was turned down. An e-mail from the co-op board’s lawyer mentions that Angel “states she gets SSI” — disability payments — and claims that she has not provided documentation of her income. Eyedealism denies this.
Adding to the possible civil-liberty issues involved in turning down an applicant with a disability issue, it appears that the co-op board did not even actually exist, having been dissolved in 2009.
While dealing with the recent death of her mother, followed by a heart attack, Eyedealism is still struggling to hold onto her apartment.
Meanwhile, the stars are aligning for her career: Big-name corporations and clients are starting to call, including George Lopez, who filmed her reading of him for his upcoming reality show “Very Superstitious.” But what she really needs — immediately — is a lawyer who deals with both tenant law and disability issues.
“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me,” she said. “I want to lead with a sparkling and colorful example. And I want my chance to buy my home.”
Angel Eyedealism can be reached at 347-725-7499 or by e-mail at angeleyedealism@gmail.com . Her Web site is https://www.angeleyeastrology.com/ .
